DELAYS WITH REFUNDS - PRINCESS CRUISES

[Tsadaq]

Why is Princess Cruises so quick to take the deposit out of my bank account but needs months to refund it? Princess cancelled the cruise - due to COVID - so it was not my decision. It was a deposit for the cruise only, no extras, no excursions, drink packages - so a refund should be straight-forward. The corporate excuse is "due to the volume of refunds they are processing millions of dollars"  - but any modern,. digital accounting system can easily scale and handle volume. WHAT ARE THEY USING IN THEIR ACCOUNTS DEPT - AN ABACUS?  Prolonged delay in processing refunds and credits has happened to me before with Princess.  It severely tarnishes their brand. It is annoying, unnecessary, and frustrating.  There is no practical way to contact them on their website. Try it and see for yourself. Unless you are booking - then it's immediate contact and an immediate deduction from your bank account. REPLACE YOUR ACCOUNTING SYSTEM PRINCESS!

[NSWP]

3 minutes ago, Tsadaq said:

Why is Princess Cruises so quick to take the deposit out of my bank account but needs months to refund it? Princess cancelled the cruise - due to COVID - so it was not my decision. It was a deposit for the cruise only, no extras, no excursions, drink packages - so a refund should be straight-forward. The corporate excuse is "due to the volume of refunds they are processing millions of dollars"  - but any modern,. digital accounting system can easily scale and handle volume. WHAT ARE THEY USING IN THEIR ACCOUNTS DEPT - AN ABACUS?  Prolonged delay in processing refunds and credits has happened to me before with Princess.  It severely tarnishes their brand. It is annoying, unnecessary, and frustrating.  There is no practical way to contact them on their website. Try it and see for yourself. Unless you are booking - then it's immediate contact and an immediate deduction from your bank account. REPLACE YOUR ACCOUNTING SYSTEM PRINCESS!

Firstly I note post No.1, so welcome to CC.  Why the delays, well once they have your money they don't want to give it up easily! They would probably prefer you to use that deposit against another cruise.   But saying that from what I read on here Princess is one of the better ones concerning refunds, some peeps have been waiting a year for theirs.  How long have you been waiting?

 

Good luck with it all.

[MicCanberra]

Welcome to Cruise Critic, 

The simple story is, if you want a refund you will wait, if you opt to take the FCC (future cruise credit), it is almost immediate as long as you know what to book next.

[OzKiwiJJ]

The last lot of cancellations only happened a couple of weeks ago and refunds aren't an automatic process. Each one has to be handled manually. There were three choices - a refund, a moveover, or FCCs. Even the FCCs take a few weeks to come through and those are the easiest to process. 

 

As NSWP said, Princess is one of the better cruise lines. It took almost a year to get a refund from one cruise line we'd booked with.

 

Did you book direct with Princess or through a travel agent? 

[Tsadaq]

2 hours ago, NSWP said:

Firstly I note post No.1, so welcome to CC.  Why the delays, well once they have your money they don't want to give it up easily! They would probably prefer you to use that deposit against another cruise.   But saying that from what I read on here Princess is one of the better ones concerning refunds, some peeps have been waiting a year for theirs.  How long have you been waiting?

 

Good luck with it all.

Princess cancelled. The CEO emailed me offering 3 options - FCC, book another cruise, cash refund.  I opted for cash refund.  A week later I got a call asking to confirm my choice for a refund. (More delay - don't they believe their own customer option system?) Accounts "processed" it on 5 August.  In the unique universe of cruising, customers seem to have reluctantly accepted the absurd delays for refunds. Doesn't Princess realise they lose loyalty with their snail approach?  No organisation on earth is that slow in processing refunds. 

[Tsadaq]

42 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

The last lot of cancellations only happened a couple of weeks ago and refunds aren't an automatic process. Each one has to be handled manually. There were three choices - a refund, a moveover, or FCCs. Even the FCCs take a few weeks to come through and those are the easiest to process. 

 

As NSWP said, Princess is one of the better cruise lines. It took almost a year to get a refund from one cruise line we'd booked with.

 

Did you book direct with Princess or through a travel agent? 

Booked direct.  

[OzKiwiJJ]

If it was processed on the 5th August it seems very strange that you haven't received the refund. Sometimes refunds are dated by the original payment date and can get "lost" if you only check your credit card transactions online. This happened to me with a refund - I had to check the statement printouts to actually see the transaction as the original date was prior to the earliest online transaction date available.

 

[NSWP]

33 minutes ago, Tsadaq said:

Booked direct.  

Was it a booking made with Princess Australia?  If so you can talk to them on the phone, done it many times.

Edited October 8, 2021 by NSWP

[MicCanberra]

57 minutes ago, Tsadaq said:

Princess cancelled. The CEO emailed me offering 3 options - FCC, book another cruise, cash refund.  I opted for cash refund.  A week later I got a call asking to confirm my choice for a refund. (More delay - don't they believe their own customer option system?) Accounts "processed" it on 5 August.  In the unique universe of cruising, customers seem to have reluctantly accepted the absurd delays for refunds. Doesn't Princess realise they lose loyalty with their snail approach?  No organisation on earth is that slow in processing refunds. 

Unfortunately there are plenty of organisations that are worse than Princess and even more that will not do refunds at all.

[Tsadaq]

2 hours ago, NSWP said:

Was it a booking made with Princess Australia?  If so you can talk to them on the phone, done it many times.

Thanks, that is good to know.  Is there a phone number in Oz?  Cant see anything on their website.  Thank you 🙂

[Tsadaq]

2 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

Unfortunately there are plenty of organisations that are worse than Princess and even more that will not do refunds at all.

First, thanks for the friendly welcome to this forum. My dismay is directed at Princess, so hope I did not offend anyone here. In 71 years I have never experienced such delays and hope I don't encounter worse organisations - which is not the gold standard.  I work in digital transformation (IT) which may explain my surprise that cruise organisations are so far behind.

[Tsadaq]

3 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

If it was processed on the 5th August it seems very strange that you haven't received the refund. Sometimes refunds are dated by the original payment date and can get "lost" if you only check your credit card transactions online. This happened to me with a refund - I had to check the statement printouts to actually see the transaction as the original date was prior to the earliest online transaction date available.

 

OK, thanks for that. When I track down a pho number to call them on, I'll chase it. But so far, no reversal of the debit card debit as it would immediately appear as an uplift in my daily bank balance.

[By The Bay]

5 minutes ago, Tsadaq said:

Thanks, that is good to know.  Is there a phone number in Oz?  Cant see anything on their website.  Thank you 🙂

1300 551 853

[OzKiwiJJ]

Or 132488

 

 

[OzKiwiJJ]

3 minutes ago, Tsadaq said:

OK, thanks for that. When I track down a pho number to call them on, I'll chase it. But so far, no reversal of the debit card debit as it would immediately appear as an uplift in my daily bank balance.

Definitely worth following up with them. There could have been an error processing the refund, perhaps the debit card number was enter incorrectly or something. It has to be something strange like that if they confirmed the refund had been processed in August but it never reached your account. But do check your debit card statement (not online transactions) for that period just in case.

[MicCanberra]

32 minutes ago, Tsadaq said:

First, thanks for the friendly welcome to this forum. My dismay is directed at Princess, so hope I did not offend anyone here. In 71 years I have never experienced such delays and hope I don't encounter worse organisations - which is not the gold standard.  I work in digital transformation (IT) which may explain my surprise that cruise organisations are so far behind.

I was not offended, not sure about anyone else. Just stating that numerous  other lines didn't  even offer refunds just future cruise credits, and many other companies didn't offer anything and just kept the money from their clients. Another reason to always read the t&Cs.

[sewgood]

3 hours ago, By The Bay said:

1300 551 853

 

4 hours ago, Tsadaq said:

Thanks, that is good to know.  Is there a phone number in Oz?  Cant see anything on their website.  Thank you 🙂

I use the above number and call them between 9am to about 5pm Mon to Fri.

I have found them to be very helpful and polite over the years.

[OzKiwiJJ]

I've found the best time to call is in the morning, no later than 10am. 

[Tsadaq]

Thank you all for your helpful comments.  I sense the same friendly spirit here that I saw on my cruises from Australia.